


Butterflies

by Apsacta



Category: Twosetviolin
Genre: Don't Ask, I Don't Know What It Means Either, I'm Sorry, M/M, it's another one for the weird series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25865245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apsacta/pseuds/Apsacta
Summary: He can feel them all inside of him sometimes, at night before he goes to sleep, soft flutter of wings, more than ten years of them inside of him.
Relationships: Eddy Chen & Brett Yang, Eddy Chen/Brett Yang
Comments: 27
Kudos: 48





	Butterflies

**Author's Note:**

> In my head, this is forms a weird trilogy with thunder, lightning, rain and the heart-dragon.  
> Consider this your warning.

The first time that Eddy brings him a butterfly, Brett is sixteen, and he doesn’t understand.

Eddy is fifteen then, not fully himself yet. He’s still a little brittle, with a shyness around his edges that turns into too quiet or too loud when his insecurities flare up. Brett will learn, later, to treasure the flare ups, once Eddy’s more settled in his own skin. But he hasn’t learned yet, and Eddy is still a little foreign, shiny and new, and unpredictable at times.

He comes to Brett one day with his hands held tight against his chest, cradling something against his heart like a secret. There’s a fluttering murmur inside the cavern of those hands, wings whispering something against Eddy’s palms. He looks at Brett from the corner of his eye, from under his fringe, a little shy – like he’s thirteen again – before he opens the hollow a little, shows his secret.

Brett doesn’t know how to react. 

In Eddy’s hands, the butterfly quivers a little. One heartbeat. Then two. Then three. Then it’s gone, fluttering wings against the sky, vanishing shape against the open brightness. Too late.

Brett thinks about it at night before he goes to sleep, butterfly wings, soft petals brushing against Eddy’s hands, cradling fingers, complicated sighs until he falls asleep.

They don’t talk about it but Brett never looks at butterflies the same.

There’s the ghost of them – quivering, whispering wings – in their interactions, after that first time, and it takes ages before Brett gets used to it enough that he can ignore it. Until then, there’s the flutter of their wings when Eddy bumps the back of his hand against Brett’s by accident, flashes of colour disappearing into the sky when he jolts his hand away, memory of Eddy’s cradling palms when he looks at Brett from the side, ears a delicate shade of red.

There’s a neediness in Eddy that comes out as a desperation to please, to be liked despite the shyness, to earn affection by impressing people – tiny remnants of familial expectations that cling to his skin long after he’s met them, that will take years to soften and will flare up sometimes with anxiety, even when they’re both too old for it.

_Am I doing good, Brett, am I good enough, please?_

Brett will know how to work around that too, compose with it until he knows Eddy well enough that he can ignore it. For now, he’s still learning, and he looks at Eddy with a sort of care that he hasn’t felt in a while, not since his younger brother was a toddler, waddling around the house on uncertain legs. The feeling is a little foreign, shiny and new, and a little unpredictable at times. He keeps it hidden behind teases and laughter.

Brett doesn’t really notice Eddy growing up, not any more than he notices it in himself. Just like that, one day he’s seventeen, and Eddy plays happy birthday for him on the violin with a mischievous grin that he’s very bad at concealing. And Brett _really_ _sees_ his hands for the first time, knows that Eddy will have a larger handspan, and wonders if he should feel jealous, wonders if everything changes with time, if Eddy will stop looking at him from the corner of his eye in orchestra, badly concealed grin, swallowed mirth, shaky bow. Out of tune.

The second time Eddy brings him a butterfly, it is the eve of his eighteenth birthday, and Brett had almost forgotten.

Whispers and flutters have melted into comfort and the colours have dulled a bit with time. Eddy’s just Eddy and the shyness is just trademark now, easy to handle with a joke or two. Poke him in the ribs and he’ll laugh, easy baby, pinch him on the knee and he’ll come down from anxiety induced high, with sorry eyes and quiet nods. Just Eddy. And yet.

He’d almost forgotten but it all comes back to him, that first time, the shyness, the hands that Eddy was holding close, the strangeness of it all. How it felt at the moment. How it felt after. 

Eddy comes at him again and he pushes his hands towards Brett, knuckles rasping, a little harsh against Brett’s chest. Maybe Brett is seeing things, but Eddy’s eyes look a little too wet and his smile a little too desperate, and Brett knows.

Brett knows before Eddy opens his palms, before he even looks at those hands – the same hands that play the violin, the same fingers that hold the bow and press on the strings. He’s watched them countless times, somehow different now that they’re held up. Offering.

He knows even as he asks ‘ _Eddy?_ ’ and Eddy gives him no answer, none at all, just keeps looking at him with the brown of his eyes turning a little too soft.

Eddy opens up slowly and Brett can’t breathe until it’s done, his own palms hovering just whispers above Eddy’s, not sure if he wants to hold on or let go.

_What would happen if?_

In Eddy’s open palms, the wings open and close like steady breathing, their hypnotic colours flashing before Brett’s eyes. Eddy’s still watching him with liquid irises, and it’s not easy, not when the rise of his chest matches the fanning petals in his hands, Brett thinks that it’s too easy for him to open and close like that. It’s unfair.

He feels the wings against his own hands when he takes the butterfly. Soft tickles, like Eddy’s eyelashes when he looks up at him. Expectant. Eddy’s fingers brush around his, then, and he closes Brett’s palms around it, pushes upwards gently. Brett knows, then.

It tickles his throat as it goes down, but he could already tell it would before he swallowed. He can hear Eddy breathe, the blood in his ears, can feel the flutter of wings. There’s an itch in his chest that turns into a weight on his stomach. Uneasy.

They don’t look at each other for a long time, eyes to the ground. Brett thinks about Eddy’s hands. His mouth feels dry.

He doesn’t sleep that night, kept awake by the weight in his stomach.

Eddy grows out of his shell in waves, and if the shyness never really goes away, he gets better at pretending. Brett knows, though, he’s always known, can’t be fooled by fake confidence when Eddy’s palms are sweaty against his. The same palms, dry, when they cuddle a butterfly, and Brett gets used to it, it’s easy, a caress on his tongue and a prickle in his throat and a flutter in his gut. It’s easy to swallow Eddy’s secret and carry it inside. He could do it forever.

It gets harder, when he goes to university and Eddy suddenly has this whole life outside of him, outside of endless practice and the subtle balance between too much and not enough.

Brett waits for him with the phantom touch of wings inside his throat and he gets uneasy at the thought. Are they alive, still? Sometimes he can’t feel them at night and he worries.

It’s harder still, later, when Eddy’s there, faking confidence, and all Brett wants is to shelter him under his wing. It feels like he’s stretched too thin. It’s a dance, this thing they’re doing, back and forth and to the side, confident and shy and every stage in between. They’ll have to talk about it some time, talk about it in a proper way, no more whispers and flutters and unspoken words.

There are more butterflies. 

There are more butterflies, still, after that, swallowed whole and caged inside. It gets easier with each new one, he can do it without thinking. He can look at Eddy, too. He can look at Eddy now when he swallows them.

Eddy’s always looked at him, but he gets braver, too. One day, somewhere between broader shoulders and golden glasses, he doesn’t leave it Brett’s hands. It’s the same hands that Brett’s known for almost a decade now, the same hands that hack away at technique until the early hours of the morning, the same hands that play Mozart for fun and Sibelius for show, larger than his since longer than Brett can remember. It’s the same hands now at his lips, warm and careful, trembling the way Eddy’s hands sometimes do.

It flutters inside of him in the dark, nice comforting feeling. They’re alive. 

They don’t fight. They don’t fight except when they do, silently, with side looks and pretend smiles. When Eddy’s pout is more than for show and Brett’s dead-pan is more than a mask, when Eddy’s weird and Brett wants things from him that he won’t ask.

Eddy’s shyness flares up in the aftermath, he looks at Brett from the corner of his eye, from under his fringe – like he’s thirteen again, like he’s afraid to lose him. He comes to Brett with his hands held tight against his chest, sweaty palms cradling something that he refuses to give up, like he won’t share his secret. He doesn’t bring his hands to Brett’s lips but to his, opens wide, stubborn like a child.

Eddy can’t swallow but won’t let go, stubborn, stupid, cheeks red and eyes wet. Brett has to prize it from him before he chokes on it.

There are more butterflies after that still, fluttering wings pried from Eddy’s lips to disappear inside Brett’s mouth.

He can feel them all inside of him sometimes, at night before he goes to sleep, soft flutter of wings, more than ten years of them inside of him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :)  
> Have a nice day.


End file.
